


I is for Impression

by FenHarelMaGhilana (WhitethornWolf)



Series: Fortune Favour Me [20]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhitethornWolf/pseuds/FenHarelMaGhilana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eilin gets a nickname.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I is for Impression

Denerim is the sort of place one can easily get lost in. It's all winding alleyways and streets crowded with merchants' wagons and brightly painted carriages; people trampling the dirt and winding through the traffic as they go about their business.

Eilin watches the bustle from the market square. It's taken a whole morning of carefully executed pleading to get Mother to let her outside for the afternoon, and she's determined not to waste time - even if Mother insisted Father's guards accompany her.

She doesn't even know _why_. She's twelve, not five, and not likely to get into much trouble. Not in the markets, anyway.

A merchant selling brightly coloured dolls catches her eye and she makes a beeline for the stall. An elbow sideswipes her and sends her staggering forward, barely managing to regain her footing. It's a boy, a skinny street urchin all dirty hands and knobby knees. He stammers an apology while making a hasty retreat back into the crowd.

The merchant calls her 'my lady' and asks if she's seen anything she likes, but her mind keeps wandering back to the boy. She's seen children like him in the Highever markets. They're quick little creatures with nimble fingers who can cut your purse and be halfway out of the market before you realise it.

 _They're just hungry and desperate,_ Fergus would say, _and doing what they can to survive._

Eilin isn't stupid; she knows what happens to children like that, and she's unsurprised when she feels for her pouch of coins and finds nothing but frayed string.

Furious at herself, she whirls and dives into the crowd, pulling up her skirts - ignoring the scandalized looks - and tucking most of them into the breeches she wears underneath. The boy isn't far ahead of her and moves fluidly through the crowd, skirting around guards and brushing past women and children. She sees those fingers dipping into pockets and shouts at him.

"Stop!"

In hindsight it might have been better to catch him by surprise, or call a city guard. But Eilin has never been terribly subtle, and the last thing she wants is to lose him. So she charges for him as he turns, blanches, and runs.

Boys are so stupid.

She pursues him doggedly, twisting and weaving through the throng of people, shoving past bawling children and nearly knocking over a fat dwarf carrying what looks like a shaved rabbit.

The boy turns sharply and she follows, almost skidding in the dust. He runs into an alley that smells like urine and refuse, then turns to face her reluctantly. The alley ends in a brick wall that's impossible to scale - the only exit is behind her and he knows it.

"Give me my coin purse!" she demands. "You're a thief. I know you took it, and I want it back!"

The boy lunges forward and makes a break for the exit; Eilin blocks his way and shoves him back, fists clenched and face twisted in anger.

"I want my coin purse back!" she shouts at him, stamping her foot. "I'll tell the guards you took it!"

She anticipates the boy's second lunge at her, but the punch catches her by surprise. Dirty knuckles slam into the side of her face, her cheek and eye absorbing most of the blow, and she grabs him around the waist even as she falls backward. He tumbles mid-leap, twisting wildly, and grabs a fistful of her hair, thrashing as she kicks him in the shins. They roll in the dirt, scratching and biting and pulling hair. For all his skinniness he's stronger than he looks, and he's far less gentle than Fergus. But she's older and has a few tricks up her sleeve, and she's twisting his arm and pushing his face into the dirt when strong arms lift her bodily away from him.

Without thinking she thrusts her elbow back and the blow hits metal with a thud, and she twists wildly as the guard pins her arms behind her back.

"Enough!"

There's authority in that voice and she stops struggling. Only then does she realise that there's a half-dozen guards surrounding her and the boy is twisting in the grip of one, his expression wildly panicked, bleeding from his nose and mouth. There's a coppery taste in her mouth; her lip is split, and her eye is throbbing.

The guards aren't like the ones she's seen in the marketplace; they are wearing gilded plate armour, almost fancier than Father's suit of silverite, and the engraving on their breastplates look familiar.

The man who had spoken fixes one of the guards with a look; the type of look Father gives her when he expects an explanation. He's heavily armoured in a suit that looks far too fancy for their surroundings, and his eyes are stern. There's another man with him, tall with blonde hair and wearing fine clothes that seem out of place in the stinking alley. He too looks familiar. Maybe he's one of Father's friends, Eilin thinks, and relaxes so the guard will loosen his hold.

"It's just a couple of street urchins, my lord," the guard holding the boy says.

"I'm not a street urchin!" Eilin says fiercely. She twists out of the guard's grip and points at the boy. "He is! He took my coin purse!"

The blonde man gives her an amused look. "And you took it upon yourself to chase him down?"

"It was my grandmother's," she says defensively, scowling at the titters from the guards. "I don't care about the coin. Your Grace," she adds as an afterthought.

"Your Majesty," the stern man corrects her.

Eilin feels the blood draining from her face; she shoots a look of panic at the two men, then drops to one knee.

 _Of course it's the king,_ she groans inwardly, thoughts racing to come up with a way to get out of this mess. _Oh, what would Mother say..._

"Up you get, girl," the king says, and she shakily rises. She looks anywhere but him, touching dirty fingers to her bleeding lip, and hears the stern man instruct the guard to search the boy. Surely he can't be Teyrn mac Tir? He must be if he's with the king, she thinks, and her cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment.

They come up with her coin purse moments later. The guards are rough with him, and Eilin cringes at the expression on his face as they hand the pouch back to her. Suddenly it doesn't seem like such a triumph.

"What are you going to do with him?" she asks as the guards pull the boy upright. He's crying, still twisting against their grip. She finds it hard to look at him.

"The boy is a thief," the stern man says. "He'll be arrested."

Eilin steps forward before she knows what she's doing. "No! I don't want that."

Maker, but she's never seen anyone's eyebrows go up that high - except for Mother's, of course. The man - who she's sure is Teyrn mac Tir - stares at her oddly and says, "What are you talking about, girl? Is or is he not a thief?"

"He is, but...I don't want him to be arrested." Eilin glances at the king, cheeks burning at the sound of the guards' snorts of laughter. "It's only coin. He can have it, if that's what he wants. I just care about the pouch."

They send the boy packing with two silvers from her coin pouch and a few new bruises, and they emerge back into the marketplace to a crowd of staring people, her father's guards among them.

"Lady Cousland!" one of them calls as she appears behind the king. She knows she looks a sight - hair in tangles, face bruised and swollen, lip bleeding and dress torn.

The king pauses, glances down at her, and raises his eyebrows.

"Lady Cousland?" he repeats.

He's a friend of Father's, Eilin suddenly remembers, and she has the grace to look abashed.

 

\---

 

 

"Of all the people," Eleanor says much later while bathing Eilin's face. "Of _all the people_ you could encounter while - "

"Mother, I -"

"- tousling with a street urchin, of all things -"

"He had my coin purse!"

"I hope you at least remembered your manners." Eleanor wrings the cloth out in the basin balancing on her knees and turns Eilin's face to the light.

"I did. You'd be ever so proud. I knelt and everything."

"I should be thankful for small mercies, then," Eleanor replies dryly. She dabs at Eilin's split lip with the cloth, holding her daughter's chin firmly as she shifts impatiently. "Sit still. And don't roll your eyes at me, young lady."

"He called me _spitfire_ ," Eilin says proudly, as Eleanor wrings the cloth out again. "And he said he would tell me about the battles he's been in tonight."

Eleanor grasps Eilin's chin and turns her so their gazes lock. "Now, I expect you to make a good impression tonight. A better impression," she adds, "than earlier. You don't have to be a shining example. Just mind your tongue and don't embarrass your father. Or me," she adds as an afterthought.


End file.
